


pull me down

by itsmylifekay



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fantasy, M/M, Minor Character Death, the feel good revenge kind of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-25 00:35:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14367108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsmylifekay/pseuds/itsmylifekay
Summary: Sanji’s probably around five the first time it happens. He and his brothers are outside playing, undergrowth rustling, leaves damp against their bare feet. The sun is bright but obscured, dappled spots of light that they race through. It’s a beautiful day and Sanji is happy to be outside.Or, Zoro is a mythical stream monster and he and Sanji bond and get up to some shenanigans.





	pull me down

 

Sanji’s probably around five the first time it happens. He and his brothers are outside playing, undergrowth rustling, leaves damp against their bare feet. The sun is bright but obscured, dappled spots of light that they race through. It’s a beautiful day and Sanji is happy to be outside.

He’s happy despite how his brothers tease him and leave him behind, despite the feeling of loneliness that clings to him with cool, sticky fingers. At least today they haven’t shoved him into a mud puddle or dropped a snake down his shirt. He follows the sound of their laughter, not too worried when it suddenly stops, just walks in the direction he think he last heard it.

His brothers might tease him, but he still doesn’t want to be forgotten.

He can hear the gurgling of water and with a few more steps comes upon the muddy bank of the stream that passes behind their house. But they’re a ways off from their house now, further out into the woods, and as Sanji stares into the dark, slow moving water he wonders just how far out they’ve come.

He doesn’t have long to wonder before he’s pushed from behind, sent tumbling down into the stream. He splashes and yells and his brothers laugh.

“Watch out, Sanji,” Ichiji yells, already racing back towards the house. “Don’t let the monster get you.”

Sanji’s eyes go wide.

They’ve all heard the stories: a monster in the stream, bodies found washed up along the sloping banks. Sanji himself has never wandered out far enough to be afraid, the stories always mention the same quiet bend in the stream, a small section where the monster hunts.

His feet can’t touch the bottom and suddenly, he’s terrified.

He can imagine eyes staring at him from below, dead bodies with their hair floating in the water, skin drained of color, fish nibbling at their fingers. He wants to cry. He wants his mother.

He quiets quickly, knows enough not to want to attract attention. His brothers won’t help and there’s no one else out this far to hear him.

He starts to paddle weakly towards the edge, clambers up onto the bank and pulls his feet out of the water. His heart hammers in his chest.

Something is watching him, he knows it.

He scrambles up against a nearby tree trunk, curls into a ball and watches the edge of the water, chest heaving. Ripples dissipate from the surface of the water, all evidence of his flight vanishing, overtaken by the slow, dark movement of the stream. He waits, staring, until his breath evens out and his heart slows.

Nothing changes. Nothing comes out after him. No hands reach out from the depths.

He stands up on shaky legs, turns, and runs all the way back home, cries in his mother’s lap while she pets his hair.

****

The next time it’s his father.

The water is just as dark, just as foreboding as he remembers. The same sense of being watched washes over him and he wants to run.

But with his mother dead, Sanji no longer has a place to run back to, has no one to protect him from the rough grip on his upper arm. At eight years old, he’s still small and his father has no trouble lifting him in the air.

The moon is high overhead and stars twinkle and wink from between tree branches.

“You’re no son of mine,” his father says. There’s alcohol on his breath and hatred in his eyes as he drops Sanji into the water. “Don’t come back.”

The cold hits him first, eyes shut tight as water covers his face. He surfaces spluttering and gasping, his father already striding away. He feels truly and utterly alone. This time, when he makes his way back to the bank, he lays there for awhile, leans against the same tree and lets his eyes fall shut.

Pretends he can feel his mother’s fingers in his hair.

***

It takes a few more years for Sanji to realize his father had meant to kill him that day.

A few years for Sanji to look at the paper and see an article about that section of stream, see a childhood ghost story written in neat little facts. So many deaths, so many bodies found on those quiet banks.

Maybe someone else would’ve been afraid, but he’s thirteen and adventurous, full of rebellion and hatred for his birth family.

He goes back to the stream.

He toes at the water, stares into its depths, then curls up against that same tree. The forest is quiet around him, the sound of the stream, the chirping of birds. Branches sway in the wind overhead. He feels safe and, somehow, he doesn’t feel quite so alone.

It becomes his favorite spot when he wants to escape for a while. No one bothers him, he can sit for as long as he’d like, and every time he walks away it feels like a victory.

His family didn’t kill him.

He can walk right up to what was supposed to be his grave and throw a pebble in the water, watch ripples fan out over the surface. He no longer imagines dead hands and flowing hair. Whatever’s happening in the water, he has a feeling the bodies aren’t meant to stay drowned, that they’re brought back up for a reason. At least that’s what he likes to think.

But he’s always careful not to put in more than his feet.

Better not to tempt fate.

***

He picks up smoking and keeps a little pail by his tree, layers ashes and cigarette butts with dirt and rock. Sometimes he’ll talk to the water, about his life, about his past. He remembers what it felt like to be under the surface.

He sticks one foot in the cool water and blows a stream of smoke up into the trees.

“I’m glad you didn’t kill me,” he says one day.

He’s older now. Older and slightly drunk, half a bottle of vodka already gone, the product of a day of remembering. Remembering his mother. The hatred in his father’s eyes.

He says it again. “I’m glad you didn’t kill me.”

Taking another drink from the bottle, he stares into the water, considering, then suddenly puts both feet in, holds the bottle out past his legs. “Consider this a token of my appreciation.”

A steady stream of vodka pours from the bottle into the water. He watches it, transfixed, as it falls. Everything is a bit hazy, the woods dark around him, the water cool where it covers his feet, laps at his calves.

Suddenly, a hand springs up and wraps around the bottle’s neck, hauling it back upright then yanking it from Sanji’s grip entirely.

If he wasn’t already sitting, he’s sure he’d have fallen on his ass, as it is he nearly jumps out of his skin.

Because right there in front of him, drinking thirstily out of the bottle he himself had been drinking from just a minute before, is a man.

A man with tanned skin and green hair, a man who looks only slightly older than Sanji himself.

A man who fucking appeared out of the water like some kind of ghost. (Or a mermaid, but seeing the apparent lack of tail, and the ratty pants encasing very human legs, Sanji writes it off.)

He must make some kind of sound because the man turns to look at him, revealing a stern expression and a single piercing eye, the other scarred shut.

“Don’t waste perfectly good alcohol, or maybe I’ll kill you for that.” The man says.

Sanji gapes.

The man takes another drink from the bottle, now almost empty.

The abysmal manners jerk Sanji out of his shock, he sputters, “I wasn’t wasting it! I was using it to say thank you.”

“Then why pour it in the water?” The man asks, brow furrowed. “You should give it to the person you’re thanking, idiot.”

“Idiot? Who are you calling an idiot, plant head.” Sanji shoots back, glaring up at the moss headed man in question. “I was thanking the water for not killing me before you came and rudely stole my gift.”

One eyebrow lifts and without a word the man sets the vodka down on the bank, then steps back and disappears beneath the water.

It only takes a second for Sanji to feel a hand wrap around his ankle and suddenly he’s in the water too, trying not to inhale and futilely kicking to get free. The water’s too murky to make out much but he feels when they hit bottom, muck cold and slimy against his back for just a moment before he’s jerked upwards again, surfacing as quickly as he’d been brought down.

The man stares at him smugly as Sanji coughs and swims back to the bank, following behind and taking a pointed drink from the bottle while Sanji puts two and two together.

Suddenly, it clicks.

“You,” he says. “You’re the reason so many people die here.”

The man smirks, mouth curled around the bottle as he drains the last few drops.

“You drown people.” Sanji takes another few seconds to process this, then, overcome with a strange mix of frustration, gratitude, and curiosity, adds, “But you didn’t drown me.”

The man shrugs and tosses the empty bottle back at Sanji. “You were just a kid.”

Sanji’s eyes narrow. “I’m not a kid now.”

“Do you _want_ me to kill you?” The man asks, brow creased. He looks genuinely baffled. For some kind of murderous monster, the guy is kind of dense.

“No, you moss head.” Sanji shoots back. “Why would I thank you for not killing me if I _wanted_ you to kill me?”

The man scowls. “Who are you calling moss head, curly brow.”

“You, plant for brains.” Sanji shoots back. “Does all the water in your ears make it hard to hear? And don’t call me curly brow. My name is Sanji.”

The man grins like a shark. “I know.” He takes a step back. “Try not to fall in, swirly. Maybe next time I’ll kill you after all.”

And with that, he’s gone. Vanished back under the water faster than Sanji can comprehend, only the faintest of ripples disturbing the surface of the stream to signal he’d ever been there at all. His final words are still ringing in Sanji’s head.

“Don’t call me swirly either, you shitty moss head!” He throws a handful of dirt and rock into the stream for good measure. “As if you could kill me, fucking bastard.”

He grumbles a bit more under his breath, lights up a cigarette, then sits and stares at the water for a few minutes more, half waiting to see if the marimo will resurface and half trying to convince himself it was real at all. Because what the _fuck_ was that?

***

It only takes a couple more weeks until he’s back, leaning against his tree, smoking a cigarette, and staring intently into the water.

“Oi, marimo,” he calls, glad no one is here to see him make a fool of himself. He’s still not entirely convinced he didn’t dream the whole thing up. “Oi,” he tries again, throwing in a fist sized rock for good measure.

Silence.

The ripples from the rock fade away and nothing comes up to take their place. He lets out a huff, frustrated, then flicks his cigarette, watches as some of the ash flitters down into the stream.

Suddenly, something bursts from the water and lands right by Sanji’s side.

A rock.

The same rock, now wet and glistening.

A familiar head of green hair surfaces right after, just as wet as the rock, already glaring at Sanji as he comes a bit closer to the bank.

“Don’t pollute the water, dart brow. It’s not an ashtray.”

Sanji glances down at the murky water. “Could’ve fooled me,” he says, putting his cigarette back to his lips and blowing out a long line of smoke. The man stares, glares, then suddenly reaches out and grabs the end of Sanji’s cigarette, drenching it and leaving Sanji with half a cigarette wasted.

He vanishes immediately after.

Sanji yells, taunts, throws more rocks, but the marimo is stubbornly unresponsive. The stream doesn’t so much as splash him in return.

***

The marimo doesn’t bother coming up the next time either. Or the next. Or the one after that. Sanji smokes, and thinks, and sometimes talks to the stream, wondering if the other man can hear him.

***

It’s two months before Sanji sees him again.

After a rough evening at the restaurant, he walks quietly into the woods, cigarette already in hand and walking by the light of the full moon. All he wants is some peace and quiet, to be alone with his thoughts for a few minutes. No rude customers, no well-meaning old man yelling in his ear.

He comes to his little bend in the stream and takes a moment to appreciate how the moonlight glitters over the water before leaning against his tree and shutting his eyes.

He must’ve dozed off because the next thing he knows there’s droplets of water hitting his face. The forecast hadn’t called for rain; there hadn’t even been a cloud in the sky. He cracks open an eye prepared to fully berate the weather threatening to dislodge him, but sees a wide expanse of twinkling stars overhead. No clouds. And no more drops falling on his face, either.

He hears a splash and turns his head, eyes widening when he sees someone staring back at him. The marimo.

The idiot had fucking splashed him.

He opens his mouth to fling out some colorful insult, but the other man motions for him to be quiet instead, looking dangerously out into the woods. It’s a few moments before Sanji hears it too: the crunch of footsteps coming closer.

And from the look on the other man’s face, whoever it is probably means trouble.

He climbs up his tree, straddling one of the branches and hoping that they won’t look up, or it’ll be dark enough that the leaves are enough conceal him. The full moon he’d enjoyed before is suddenly a liability.

The marimo sinks wordlessly back into the stream.

“Oi, it’s right up here isn’t it?”

“Should be. Now shut up, the whole damn forest can hear you.”

Two men come into view, dragging a third between them, the taller of the two grumbling under his breath.

“Come on, let’s toss him in and be done with it.”

The shorter one adjusts his hold on the limp man between them and they make their way to the bank, giving a final heave. The man’s body makes a loud splash as it hits the water, droplets spraying up, ripples spreading in giant, disorderly arches as the body bobs on the surface. The following silence is deafening.

The taller man breaks it, voice lower than before. “Should we wait to make sure?”

“You wanna wind up dead, too?” The other man snaps. “Let’s get the fuck ou-”

A hand shoots out of the stream.

A hand followed by a strong, muscled arm and upper torso. Dripping wet, dark with shadows. It latches onto the man’s ankle and yanks, pulling him into the water.

The right hand comes next, grabbing the taller man and dragging him down as well. They shout and scrabble at the bank, terror palpable in the air.

In another instant they’re all beneath the water. It rolls and moves, eddies swirling against the dark surface, body still bobbing face down, drifting towards the bank. Bubbles rise to the surface, slow, then stop.

It’s over in a matter of moments.

The body disappears next, yanked unceremoniously beneath the water.

Sanji’s breath is caught in his chest.

That unmistakable flash of green hair.

He’d said himself that the marimo was a killer, but this was something else. Something _inhuman._

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, staring blankly at the tree branches, but his hands are dented and red by the time he pulls them away. He feels eyes on him and turns back to the stream, rubs his hands together and contemplates the best way to get down. The marimo’s face is only half above the water, just the corners of his mouth visible as he grins.

“Scared yet, curly brow?”

Sanji bristles, momentarily forgetting his perilous position as he shouts down into the water. “Who are you calling scared, plant head? As if I could be scared of a waterlogged marimo like you. Go shrivel up in the sun for all I care.”

A sudden splash of water almost knocks him from his perch but he hangs on by sheer strength of will…and inner thigh. “Shitty marimo,” he growls, wondering how many cigarettes he’s ruined this time.

He hears a laugh from down below, looks down just in time to see the other man disappear into the stream, tone far too smug for Sanji’s liking.

“Don’t think you’ve won, shit head!” He yells, then adds underneath his breath. “I’ll bring fucking algae killer next time, see how you do then.”

**********

The weather turns cold and Sanji finds a month goes by before he makes his way back to the stream. He’s done his fair share of digging in the interim and while he doesn’t have algae killer, he does have a pretty good idea of who (but not _what)_ he’s dealing with.

There’s a cigarette between his fingers and he sidles up to the edge of the stream, flicks ash down onto the water.

“Oi, marimo,” he calls. He toes off his shoes, holds his cigarette firmly between his lips and bends down to roll up his pants. “Oi,” he calls again.

The water remains as still and stubborn as ever.

He blows out a breath of smoke. “Zoro,” he says, making sure to sound as bored as possible. “Did you forget how to stand up?”

The water ripples and a hand wraps around his ankle. He can feel each finger pressing into his skin, cold and damp. A head of green hair surfaces next.

The marimo’s voice is low, body still mostly submerged in the water. “Who told you that name?” His hand tightens.

Sanji flicks his cigarette, makes sure the ash falls on the bank instead of the water. “No one told me, found out myself.” He says, then adds. “Not hard if you know how to read and where to look.”

The hand withdraws and the marimo stands, bare chest and ratty pants a sharp contrast to Sanji’s suit pants and jacket. He glares out into the woods, one eye sharp and unblinking.

“Oi, moss head.” Sanji kicks a wave of water in his direction. “Anybody else know?”

Zoro grunts and looks back towards the water. Sanji blows out another cloud of smoke and takes it as a no.

They stand there in silence for a few more minutes, Sanji smoking, Zoro staring into nothing. The water swirls at their feet.

Then, without any warning, Zoro sinks back under the water, disappearing out of sight and leaving Sanji to make his way quietly back through the woods.

He burns the book and the newspaper clippings, watches their ashes swirl up into the sky and vanish.

The name Roronoa Zoro won’t be found again.

********

When Sanji shows up the next time with a bottle of vodka and a proper ashtray, Zoro takes the booze without comment, sits with Sanji at the edge of the bank and drains the bottle dry.

They don’t talk about it again.

********

Years later, and Sanji is still frequenting the stream. Still working at the same restaurant, being yelled at by the same well-meaning old man. Life goes on.

Years later, his family finds him. And they won’t leave well enough alone. Sanji’s grown up, he’s made a name for himself both as a chef and a fighter, and they think that’s enough of a reason to try and drag him back in. Forget that they’ve tried to kill him, forget that he’s made a new family, they think they can snap their fingers and he’ll come running back. Like a dog.

He spits at his father’s feet.

Sanji’s grown up, but his father has men to help him, and as hard as Sanji fights he sees where this is going to end. It’s too many against one. They fight dirty. His only choice is to run.

He runs, and runs, and runs. Runs until it feels like his legs are on fire. Without really consciously thinking about it he ends up in the woods, trampling plants and fallen leaves, praying he doesn’t trip.

He’s taken out a few men along the way but there’s still too many on his tail. He can hear them crashing through the trees behind him. The sky is overcast, the moon barely shedding any light, and he takes some small comfort in that. With any luck, they’ll lose sight of him in the dark.

A tree up ahead catches his attention, low enough branches that he should be able to scale it, get out of sight and hope they give up the search. But the thought no sooner crosses his mind than something slams him to the ground, hands grappling at him, holding him down.

He hears cruel, familiar laughter.

It’s his brother, Niji, who’s got him pinned.

“Poor Sanji, still nowhere to run,” Ichiji grins from above him.

It’s not long before he’s arching his back, bucking Niji off and flipping them. He scrabbles up and is fighting with everything he’s got, kicking and trying not to get grabbed again. He’s got both his brothers in his sights, but misses a punch that sends his head whipping to the side. The world tilts. The ground meets him.

“Poor Sanji, still too stupid to know when to quit,” a third voice says.

Yonji.

All three of them laugh.

When Sanji opens his eyes again the ground is moving oddly beneath him. It takes a few slow blinks and a shake of his head for him to realize it’s because he’s being dragged. Memories come back in vague pieces, enough for him to know that the situation is bad.

But then he sees it: the stream.

Ichiji is the first to the bank. He urges the other two forward, Sanji limp between them. “Hurry up, we don’t want to keep father waiting.”

“You sure we should do it here?” Yonji asks. “Shouldn’t we have something to bring back?”

Niji grins, “We can always take a souvenir before we drop him in.”

They all laugh and Sanji stares silently into the water. He knows they’re being watched. A shadow flickers beneath the surface of the water.

“No, father will believe us.” Ichiji says, waving them on. “Besides, his body will wash up sooner or later.”

Agreement reached, Niji and Yonji bring him to the edge. Sanji fights against their hold and spits blood at their feet, musters one last surge of energy before they shove him into the water. The bitter cold steals his breath away. The water caresses his lips, his skin, the open cuts across his face.

But no hand wraps around his ankle, instead, he feels a palm solid against the small of his back, pushing him up until he breaks the surface.

He opens his eyes into the same milky darkness as before. The trees, his brother, and there, just a few steps away, his ashtray. Something brushes against his calve. He grins.

“Not afraid of the monster, Sanji?” his brother calls. He doesn’t care which.

He digs in his pocket for a cigarette, pulls it out, puts it between his lips.

He flicks open his lighter. Ruined, like his cigarettes.

“How long is this supposed to take?” Yonji mutters. Niji hisses for him to be quiet.

There’s a ripple of water just near the edge where his brothers stand.

His lighter flips shut.

Everything happens at once.

Water explodes from the stream, Yonji and Niji who were nearest to the edge go down first, disappearing beneath the surface before they even have time to yell. Not a second later and Zoro is halfway up the bank, only one foot left in the stream as he latches onto Ichiji’s ankle, grip so tight Sanji can see the muscles strain. He hears a snap. Icihiji shouts, a single beat of sound that’s cut off as quickly as it had started, muffled beneath the water.

The other two have struggled their way to the surface, spluttering and gasping and clambering over each other to make it to the bank, either uncaring or unaware of their elder brother’s fate. Sanji sees the precise moment Zoro grabs them.

They vanish.

The water swirls.

It’s over in less than a minute.

He stands, unmoving, ruined cigarette still hanging from his lips. Waiting.

His clothes are freezing, drenched, his hair hanging in his face. He pushes it away, rearranges it into some semblance of order. At least he can have his suit cleaned. Some rocks shift and resettle on the bank and Sanji wonders when Zoro will resurface.

The moon is watching silently from between the clouds, slitted like a half open eye.

Somehow he can’t find it in himself to start the long walk home.

His father finds him first, regardless.

“Thought you could run forever, brat?”

Sanji sighs, wishing his cigarette were lit.

“You told me not to come back.” Sanji says. He’s tired. He wants it to be over. Even the trees seem to be impatient, rustling, branches swaying in a nonexistent breeze. “Now your sons are dead because you couldn’t leave me alone.”

His father’s face turns puce, “What!? As if you could ever-”

As if on cue, one by one their bodies float to the surface of the water, lips blue, eyes unseeing.

His father stares at him like _he’s_ the monster.

He feels fingers tease at his ankle.

The cigarette is stale in his mouth. “I’m not your son. Now walk away and never come near me again.”

Water pushes at his waist, displaced as Zoro moves up his body to stand beside him. He can feel the heat of him at his back.

The bodies of his three siblings bob silently in the stream.

Taking a step back, and then another, his father finally turns and disappears back into the night.

Sanji bites down on the cigarette.

Stale and bitter against his tongue.

********

Months pass, seasons change, and Sanji keeps finding his way back to the stream. He stores the news article of his siblings’ discovery in a desk drawer, waits out the brief surge in foot traffic to his quiet spot and curses out a number of ‘ghost hunters’ for mucking up his space.

He swelters in the summer and brings an extra jacket in the fall, threatens to build a fire right there on the bank in the winter, shivering in his mittens and downy jacket. Zoro stares at him smug and shirtless from the water.

Sanji hates him for it, but finds he doesn’t mind the view.

Zoro grins like a shark the first time he catches Sanji staring.

Months pass, seasons change, and Sanji looks forward to his trips to the water. They fight and bicker, splash at each other and complain about curly brows and mossy green hair.

Sanji still cooks and trains and lives his life.

Zoro still takes the lives of others.

(Sanji contents himself knowing it’s only those who deserve it.)

******

It’s a warm spring day when Sanji makes his way to the stream. Wild flowers are just starting to poke their heads up, little dashes of color amongst all the brown and green. He’s got a basket hooked over one arm full of food he’s prepared and a bottle of booze hangs from his other hand. He stops when he reaches the edge of the bank.

The waters are deceptively deep from recent rains, lapping further up the bank than Sanji’s seen before. His usual spot is dangerously close to the water, ground muddy and sodden and ashtray half filled with water. Zoro’s already waiting propped up against Sanji’s tree, one leg stretched out, heel of his foot precariously anchored in the water.

It’s probably the first time he’s been able to reach.

Sanji smiles when he sees him.

Fingers wrap around his ankle as soon as he’s close enough, hold on and don’t let go.

The monster’s got him, but Sanji lets himself fall.

 

He’s not afraid of what’s at the bottom.

 

 


End file.
